History

• The ukulele's origins can be traced back to the cavaquinho, or machete, a small Portuguese guitar brought by immigrants from the Madeira Islands who moved to Hawaii in the 1800s to work on the sugar plantations, according to the Ukulele Guild of Hawaii's website. Fascinated by its sound, the Royal Hawaiian family quickly incorporated the instrument into their renditions of traditional songs. By the 1880s, Madeiran cabinet makers were using their woodworking skills to create what was by then being called a ukulele, or literally "jumping flea."
  
  

Features

• As with other small guitars, the ukulele's sound comes from the vibrations of its strings resonating through its wooden or plastic hollow body. Ukuleles typically have four strings, but there are also six- and eight-string varieties in which the strings are paired together to create a richer sound. Though ukuleles are traditionally made with expensive Hawaiian Koa wood, cheaper models can be made from plywood, laminate wood, mahogany or spruce, says D. Henry Wickham in his book "Ukulele Design And Construction."
  
  

Types

• While other variations exist, classic ukuleles come in four sizes: soprano, concert, tenor and baritone. A soprano is the smallest and most recognizable; its tone is the one most commonly associated with the ukulele's sound. A concert ukulele is slightly larger than the soprano and has a larger scale and fuller tone. Tenor ukuleles are one size larger than concert and are the only type to be made with more than four strings. The baritone ukulele is the largest and has the deepest tone. It is closer in size to a miniature guitar.
  
  

Mainland Popularity

• After making its American debut at the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition, ukuleles were adopted by vaudeville performers as a cheap and portable instrument to accompany acts. According to the Hawaii Ukulele Guide's website, they were then used by Tin Pan Alley songwriters and jazz musicians who saw the ukulele as a replacement for the guitar. From the 1940s through the late 1960s, famous players such as Roy Smeck, Eddie Karanae and Tiny Tim kept the ukulele popular by performing their original songs on television and radio.
  
  

Tuning

• Like many other stringed instruments, ukuleles go out of tune easily and must be retuned before each time they are played. The strings, however, are not usually tuned in order from highest pitch to lowest. Instead, according to the community website UkeTalk, standard ukulele tuning--also known as "Hawaiian tuning"--is the soprano C-tuning (G-C-E-A), in which the G string is tuned an octave above where it would normally be in the scale.